So as you know,
you're the fat cat developer, and you know the book on you is that you throw
little old ladies who can't afford
to rent part of the apartment.
I don't think that's the book on me,
if you want to hear
I don't think it is at all. I think probably
it's just the opposite.
We have very wealthy people in
this particular building.
We have a building on 100
Central
Park
South.
Probably the best piece of real estate in
New
York and the world.
We have very wealthy people,
extremely wealthy people living in this building.
We a second home.
It's quite accurate to say that every
occupant is an extremely wealthy person.
No, the ones that are complain
ing are the wealthy.
The ones that are complaining
are the wealthy.
These are people with a lot of money.
One of them is a brownstone.
A number of brownstones
in this 66th district
which is living in this building
for a rent -controlled rent.
The rent -controlled people,
the people that need rent control,
they're not the ones that are protected.
It's people that are usually
wealthy with a lot of influence
that have the connections to get
a rent -controlled apartment.
People that might need it,
they don't have to pay rent.
And it's a little fast.
I mean, that's a little bit like saying,
you know, people are out of work
because they're lazy.
Well, I think it may be, well, first of all, let's, let's, the, uh, the building I'm setting up for myself,
you can settle, you own it, and you, you make your deal with all the residents, you're more than happy it.
uh, back to this, uh, this lawsuit.
So you hire, uh,
Roy
Cohn, and he goes to work,
and you own it.
Cohn doesn't like lawyers either, because they always want to settle,
and you don't like that about lawyers.
The idea of settling drove me crazy.
The fact was that we did rent to
black -owned buildings.
What we didn't do was rent to welfare cases,
white or black.
Watch what happened when
the government came after
Samuel
Lefranc, another builder, and he caved in,
starting taking welfare cases.
They virtually ruined his building.
Um...
Welfare cases ruined his building.
Isn't that...
I got you pretty close here to...
To look like an insensitive
guy from atop your
Trump
Tower looking down on the woman rank over
the vast homes of your own empire.
shouldn't we have just a little more understanding from a man
of your influence and wealth on the issue of making
New
York livable for all of us safely
on the subway easily?
If the answer is absolutely,
then we can't continue to give you guys these big tax breaks.
And that would go for
General
Electric and
NBC too.
You tell us in your own book that you
wouldn't have money on the
Trump
Tower in
New
York or in other places.
Trump
Tower goes, and I'm not entitled,
I'm the only building in the city of
New
York
that's not entitled.
I don't think that's a good thing.
Look at the, look at the location
of your building.
What locations in the world
have funded this?
Sure, there are other
wonderful locations.
Also, they're also get
ting tax abatements.
I won the case, they didn't give it to me.
It took me two and a half years in court.
I won it seventh and I've been in
three different courts.
I'm very happy about it.
I didn't win it because I so much needed it
as much as because of the moral principle
of using pedophilia.
If nobody's going to get it, I'm satisfied.
If everybody's going to get it,
I shouldn't be the only one
that's not getting it.
And I know you well enough to know
that you wouldn't take it easy.
If you were in my position,
you wouldn't take that.
So, that's what happened.
Hey, let's hear it for the rich folk!
But, you tell us also in your book,
you left
Queens and you left
Brooklyn for
Manhattan
to, uh, to get away from rent control.
You're, you're earnest to tell us in this
Well, I'm earnest.
Hey, I'm not running for anything.
I'm not running for,
uh, because I don't have to lie in a book.
I want to tell the facts, okay?
I mean, do you want me to say
Little
Figs and
Little
This an d
Little
That
and how much we all love rent control and
what a great thing it's been for
New
York?
It's been a disaster for
New
York.
It's badly hurt
New
York.
It's crippled
New
York.
It's made it impossible for
a lot of people to live in
New
York.
And you see what's happening.
You look at the
Bronx.
You look at certain parts of
Queens and
Brooklyn.
You see what rent control's done.
And I think you know it as well
as anybody else.
Rent control, and I'm one of the few de
velopers in the world that would ever say it.
Some forms of rent control are sometimes necessary, to protect the elderly, to protect people that truly don't have the money,
but when you have multi -millionaires, and not all instances of this.
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